Homeless advocate calls for $1B-investment in public housing

First at Five: Seeking Solutions First at Five focuses on a group that has travelled to 28 communities across the country – trying to get a handle on the homelessness crisis.

Maritime housing groups are calling for a $1 billion public housing project and a national strategy to help people living rough.

Cheryl Forchuck, a researcher with The Homeless Hub, has travelled to each of Canada’s provinces and territories trying to find solutions to homelessness and shared what she's learned at a forum in Cape Breton Thursday.

"Canada is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have responsibility for housing and homelessness at the national level,” Forchuk said.

She says levels of homelessness have increased nationwide.

“We're seeing the proliferation of encampments, people living outside because there isn't the capacity within the system."

While homelessness is generally addressed at a local level, Forchuk says it’s a national crisis and needs to be addressed as such.

"I would like a fully-implemented national homelessness strategy,” Forchuk said.

Also on Thursday, the Housing Hub of New Brunswick made asked the province to pay for 10,000 new public housing units.

"In New Brunswick, our ask of the provincial government is to help support the community housing sector by investing $1 billion over the next five years,” said Mylene Vincent, of Housing Hub of New Brunswick.

Vincent says the province's rental market has about lost 9,000 units with rents under $750 since 2016

"We won't find solutions until we see our homeless populations as part of our community, as our neighbours, as people."